Green Coffee

Although we operate a ‘by appointment only’ approach at the roastery, we often get people dropping in. This usually (if we’re not roasting) ends in a small tour of the facility and description of the processes involved in order to produce roasted coffee. Often people are keen to see (and handle) coffee in its raw state – green coffee. Most are genuinely surprised at the colour, and the fact that they don’t smell like coffee (think fresh cut hay or possibly peas). If we ever have a bag of naturally processed Ehtiopian coffee in store, it’s this bag and it’s boozy aromatics, that startles most.

With the above in mind, I thought it would be useful to post a photo of raw green coffee, or green beans as us roasters call it. The beans in the photo are from a washed Central American farm, Muxbal. You’ll notice that the beans are a green/yellow colour and look vastly different from the brown, roasted product that you may be used to. You might also notice that the beans are stored in what looks like a plastic bag, which itself is inside the traditional jute sack. This is a Grainpro bag, which is now commonplace as a storage method for the speciality green coffee we purchase. These bags form a moisture and gas barrier which protects the coffee during transportation and storage. I will post an article on the benefits of different materials for transportation and storage at a later date.